Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic submitted a brief amicus curaie Friday to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on behalf of 60 global experts in sexual orientation, gender, and family law. The brief argues that the Chilean Supreme Court violated the American Convention on Human Rights when it ordered Karen Atala, a lesbian mother, to relinquish custody of her three children because of her sexual orientation.

As the son of a diplomat, Olivier De Schutter spent his boyhood in places such as India, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia, where he saw the daily struggles many residents endured just to survive.
These days, De Schutter (below) still spends time witnessing the challenges the world’s poorest citizens face in trying to feed themselves and their families. Only now, he’s doing it as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, a post he has held since 2008.